Coal deposits in India are of two distinct geological ages. The earliest coal deposits are of Permian age formed about 270 million years ago. At that time South Africa , South America , Antarctica , Australia , India and Madagascar formed a landmass called Gondwanaland. Coal formed in Gondwanaland are known as Gondwana Coal . Other deposits of Tertiary age (30-60 million years) have been formed comparatively recently. These are known as Tertiary Coal .

Gondwana or Gondwanaland was a composite continent made up of South America , Africa , Antarctica , India , and Australia ,
and even at one time included Florida and part of southwest Europe.
Gondwanaland is named after the Upper Paleozoic and Mesozoic formations of the Gondwana district of central India , which display a number of shared geologic features, the "Gondwana beds". On comparative geological evidence, that the continents of Africa , South America , Australia and India were once part of a single supercontinent, which he called "Gondwanaland".

Science tells us that the Continents of Australia, India , South America , Africa , and Antarctica , existed together as a separate landmass as long as 650 million years ago. And as these continents only began to break up some 130 million years ago, this great supercontinent had a life of around 520 million years; making it perhaps the most important geological structure of the last billion years.

A Long Time Ago

At the end of the Jurassic Age Gondwanaland began to break up and, during the Tertiary Age approximately 20 million years ago, Antarctica completely broke away from South America . Due to its isolation, an ocean current formed around the continent, fed by conductive motions caused by water masses of different temperatures, favored by cyclonic type atmospheric circulation, and influenced by the Earth's rotation . The breaking up of Gondwanaland, the dispersion of the various continental blocks, the drifting of the Antarctic continent towards polar latitudes and its isolation, are all relatively recent events by the scale of geological time.

Up until the Jurassic Age 140 million years ago, Antarctica formed part of the supercontinent of Gondwanaland, In the Jurassic Age 140 million years ago, Antarctica formed part of the supercontinent of Gondwanaland, which also included Africa , Arabia , India , Ceylon , Australia , New Zealand and South America , and occupied temperate latitudes.

Modern day landmasses were created from the break up of the ancient
super continent of Gondwanaland, some 130 million years ago

(ii) Geological Distribution of Coalfields of India

The geological distribution of Indian coalfields is shown in Table below